EGR makes history at Indy despite late race efforts by Kevin Harvick

Jamie McMurray won the Brickyard 400 and helped EGR make history in completing the trifecta of the Daytona 500, Indy 500 and Brickyard 400 after taking the lead from his race dominating teammate, Juan Pablo Montoya. The final 20 laps featured a battle with the current points leader, Kevin Harvick (Bakersfield). Harvick finished 1.391 seconds behind the No. 1 Chevy.

“It’s unbelievable,” McMurray said after the race. “We didn’t have the best car. When Kevin got by me a few laps from the end, I thought it was over….It’s just an awesome day. It’s unreal right now.”

It was a late race restart that made the difference for Harvick. “I got tight going into Turn 1 in the middle. I had to wait, and Jamie was able to carry the momentum around the outside.”

Harvick was realistic about his run. “ I felt like we had a top-five car but didn’t have a winning car. We had a chance to win at the end and came up just a little short. We took a chance and we were fast enough to take a chance. Last year we never would have been fast enough to take that chance.”

Jimmie Johnson (El Cajon) had a frustrating and disappointing day, coming in 22nd. “I’m not really sure [what the problem was] with the car today. We had high expectations for the day,” Johnson said.

“I just had a really bad understeer problem on the corner entering and into the center. We made some attempts during caution flags to make some big changes on pit road, but nothing really hooked the car up, so we'll have to dig in and find out what happened, Johnson reflected.

“You want to win every race you can, especially the big ones. I'm disappointed with today, but this track's been good for me with three wins in the last four years.”

Janelle Jalbert is a fan of a variety of racing formats and equally enjoys the history of the sport. Janelle grew up in an auto mechanic’s family and swears that there is carb spray running through her veins.

You can join the discussion of So Cal Motorsports at the Southern California Motorsports Examiner page on Facebook. Janelle can be reached via email for both comments and story ideas. You can follow Janelle as the Southern California Motorsports Examiner on Twitter as @SoCalMotorsport.

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Janelle has spent much of her life in garages throughout Southern California and enjoys a wide variety of racing formats. Her interests are balanced between current events, racing history, and the racing lifestyle.